Research is a major part of marketing. It is a strong business tool that can help build a profitable business venture if properly utilised. There are many benefits to carrying out market research for your business.
What are they?
See what your customers need
One major determinant of a thriving business is its ability to meet the demands of its customers. Therefore, it is crucial to find out what your customers want and how best your business can satisfy it. This can be very helpful in the long run since you are meeting customers’ demand which will likely translate into more sales and revenue for your business. Likewise, it can save you from making non-profitable investments.
Ability to thrive in a competitive market
Market research will most likely give you an edge over your competitors. It will allow you to identify the potential threats and opportunities in the business, thereby allowing you to avoid the threats and make the best use of your opportunities. Also, market research will help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and utilise them to your advantage. This is a very useful PR marketing strategy.
You can make strategic plans
By having a good knowledge of the market you can identify plans that should be put in place to improve your business performance and revenue. It will also help you identify emerging trends in your business as well as the possible need for product upgrades or increased brand awareness. Sometimes a little change in these factors can greatly improve your sales.
What type of research can you do
Market research could be online or offline. Until recently, businesses relied on face-to-face interviews and cold calling to obtain information on the viability of their new enterprise, but now it’s all going digital. Online market research is beginning to steal the spotlight
This method of market research leverages the fact that a lot of human activities are now conducted online and more time is spent on digital devices. It is in this light that online marketing companies have set up research technologies and data management services to carry out online research.
These companies help customers, who are majorly medium and large-scale business owners, to gather primary information through research processes that are targeted towards the specific audience which are suitable for the business. However, this is not to say that offline marketing research is not efficient.
Before the advent of online marketing research techniques, offline methods were employed by businesses and they showed tremendous results. Although these offline methods are not as popular as they used to be, they are still very effective in collecting data from target audience and obtaining in-depth marketing research results.
Market research is a comprehensive process involving data collection, analysis, and interpretation of research results, this makes offline marketing research a lot of work for business owners.
To save you from stress, Offline market research companies use methods like in-person surveys, interviews and focus group discussions to evaluate customers’ responses to a product or service.
Online market research companies
These are usually multi-dimensional research companies that offer customers the opportunity to B2B and B2C insights into various niches. They are agencies that provide access to customers’ experiences. They usually have a vast online panel community across different continents in the world, and offer numerous research features such as online survey programming and hosting, plus community panel solutions. A research company’s team of highly experienced technical personnel makes it stand out amongst other online marketing companies.
Some companies have a broader technological dominance with highly effective data management services. Their customers have access to high-quality features like telephone data collection, and video testing. You can also collect data through a web-enabled mobile phone survey, making it easy for your respondents to participate in these surveys anywhere and anytime.
In terms of community, some organizations rank above many other research companies. Aside from the B2B and B2C panels, these agencies also have a healthcare panel with members in different healthcare fields. Their wide community of panels and respondents makes them reliable for obtaining organic responses from people of different demographics.
Offline research companies
These companies work by using creative approaches such as mini-group discussions and individual interviews to establish a genuine dialogue with respondents. Their research team will work closely with your team to maximize the research process through effective communication and regular feedback, to achieve the research objectives.
Interview is an effective offline method to assess consumers’ opinions of your product, this is the principle that these research companies employ. Their services include in-depth interviews, telephone depth interviews, and focus group discussions with experienced moderators to encourage participants to share their ideas and opinions.
Business owners can choose to be fully involved in the research process or have the agency take control of it, while they provide the necessary information. These companies bring businesses, consumers, and the research team together in close collaboration throughout the research process to provide results that can be used to develop a personalized business approach.
The research team allows clients to focus on consumer feedback and recommendations while they obtain and analyse the data. Although these agencies provide offline approaches to research they also double as online market research companies by providing online surveys.
There are numerous benefits to conducting market research for your business, asides from increasing revenue, it can also help to create a business-customer relationship. Through market research, businesses get to determine whether customers are satisfied with their products and if there is a need for improvement.
If your business offers more than one product or service, you can determine which is more preferable to the customer. This information will enable you to invest in products or services with higher preference, and that will boost your profit margin. For better results, it is preferable to combine these two methods of market research. This is because each can uniquely affect the business growth and performance. Although, this may eventually cost you more, the benefits can be quite tremendous.